Folding Forum

I signed on to folding@home to do my part for COVID-19 research but as a computer illiterate, I have a few questions. (Searches and the FAQ page only found incomplete answers or I couldn't understand the lingo.) The desktop PC specs are below if needed.

1) I laid out some good money for this PC (for editing HD video). Is there a potential danger of burning out or wearing out the CPU with too much use? Should I run it at Medium power or will it be okay at High power?

2) What happens if the computer is turned off in the middle of processing a work unit?

3) Can FAH be set to run at a predetermined time, such as midnight to 8 a.m. (or until the work unit is finished)?

4) Do I use my Forum username and password when I install the FAH software?

Thanks. I'm eager to get started.

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Windows 10 Home (v 1909)

Processor: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X 12-Core 3.50 GHz
Installed RAM: 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
System type: 64-bit Operating System, x64-based processor

Display adapter: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (latest driver)

1) unlikely to burn a cpu modern cpu will have temp cutoffs, but may have heating issues at 100% if cooling not adequate, if concerned set your slider to 75% or if using advanced control set to 4,6 or 8 of the cores available.
2) Sudden shutdown may cause failure but usually it will restart from last checkpoint.
3) This kind of timing is not set by F@H but can be set by user with some effort, easier just to pause when you want to stop for a while.
4) Use nothing and you will be anonymous team zero, or choose a name and a team your can also set a passkey to achieve quick return bonus.

Your GPU will also run quite well but as gpus are brute machines is more difficult to adjust usage they are basically on or off.

Welcome to the F@H Forum Minnetonka,

In addition to what kiore has stated, here are some additional points:
2) Occasionally, you may loose a WU if the shutdown didn't provide enough time for the checkpoint to be correctly written.
3) There's an option in Advanced Control (AKA FAHControl) where you can select Finish and it will finish the WU(s), upload it and then not do anything until you set it to Fold.
4) It is recommended to use a passkey for security reasons and bonus points. Here's an article with additional details so you can make an informed decision: https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/points/passkey/

Welcome Minnetonka, to Folding and to this forum. Some of my thoughts here to augment what others have said:

1. Running Folding@home (FAH) on both the CPU and GPU can be tiring for systems that have dust buildup, worn out bearings in the fans or have faulty components. While most benchmarks and stress tests run for a short period of time, FAH is continuous and long lived, bringing out flaws in the system components (RAM, CPUs etc.) that may have gone unnoticed otherwise. My suggestion is to install a CPU and GPU temperature monitoring software (I use GPU-Z) if you don't have one already and monitor temps. CPUs and GPUs have inbuilt throttling mechanisms if they detect they are getting too hot and the thresholds are set by the manufacturer. If you aren't comfortable with the temperatures (note: temperatures of 70 to 80C are normal), you can consider setting the Folding power to medium. Note that Folding on the GPU does not have "power setting".

2. Folding@home writes progress into checkpoints. By default, CPU checkpoints are set for every 15 minutes and you can change this. For GPUs, checkpoints are written out based on the specific project that your GPU is working on and the interval is determined by the researchers (say every 5% or so). Unless your computer was shut down while the software was writing a checkpoint, it should recover from the last checkpoint when you shutdown and restart your computer and begin from that point on. For best results, always shut down your client cleanly before shutting down your computer.

3. Scheduling FAH to automatically run at certain times is not something that is controlled by the Folding@home software. You'd have to use an external scheduler such as Windows task scheduler to do this. There are a couple of topics here where others have done this but it requires some knowledge about setting this up. E.g., viewtopic.php?f=108&t=34860&p=330428&hilit=schedule#p330428

As others have said, you have manual controls in the software to pause the current work or let it run to completion and not request any new work.

4. You can use any username when you run Folding -- this forum and the Folding client do not have anything in common. It is what your points will be aggregated under. To get bonus points (which is determined based on how quickly you can return the calculated results), you'll need a passkey (which isn't the same as your password -- see the link PantherX posted for the link to obtain a passkey). If you don't care about the points, you can choose to be anonymous. If you do care about the points, get the passkey. With your CPU and GPU, you'll be completing work pretty fast and the bonuses will be substantial. Note: Bonuses will be impacted if you shut down your system or don't run Folding for some time as it is solely based on how quickly you return results.

Thanks so much for the comprehensive replies. I'm not used to that on support forums.

I have a passkey now and ready to start. Thanks again.

Minnetonka wrote:Thanks so much for the comprehensive replies. I'm not used to that on support forums.

I have a passkey now and ready to start. Thanks again.

All the best, we want you to be successful.

For a Ryzen, you'll need a decent aftermarket air cooler if ambient temps are low enough, or a closed loop water cooler in case you're running the setup inside a case with moderately-low cooling capabilities.
The stock cooler might not be sufficient to run a ryzen on all threads.
However, if you disable SMT, you'll increase core speed, though lose some threads.
The CPU will also run a lot cooler, and each core has access to more L-cache (which is important for CPU crunching).

For Ryzens, using shared cache with their cores, the performance penalty from losing SMT is somewhat compensated for, by higher core frequencies, and access to a larger L-cache.
You may see less than 10% performance loss than with SMT enabled.

For the CPU slot, I would start with 16 cores instead of the default -1, and raise it to 20 if your temps remain low and performance for your other uses doesn't suffer.

Max GPU temperature for that GPU is 88C. I would monitor it and ensure it stays around 75C max. If it doesn't you may have to modify the airflow in your case and/or downclock the GPU slightly using MSI Afterburner.

Thanks for this forum


Somehow I ended up on 2 teams one is anonymous, which I don't want, so how do I delete it as I want my points only going to the one.

My second question was that my AMD RX570 GPU wasn't doing anything, but I have reloaded the drivers and it's now working.

Thanks in advance

frosty57 wrote:Somehow I ended up on 2 teams one is anonymous, which I don't want, so how do I delete it as I want my points only going to the one.

Your Points go to the User name and Team you used when they uploaded. They can never be changed. (or low lifes would steal all our points) You can change the future, but not the past.

... and are you sure you are on two teams and it is not a case of another folder using the same folding username? ... depending on where you are looking at the stats the differentiation between two folders with the same folder name is not obvious.